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[Column] General: Paid Mods Are Likely to Return
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Here on the Internet, we love a good debacle. This weekend, the most beloved gaming retailer in the world teamed up with the world’s most beloved RPG publisher to collectively “piss off the internet”. Valve and Bethesda trying to monetize Skyrim mods? It’s on hold for now but paid modding is far from dead.
Read more of Christopher Coke's The RPG Files: Paid Mods Are Likely to Return.
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Comments
The two issues as I see it, are:
1. The low share for the mod creators - getting only 25% while Valve and Bethesda grabs the rest (37.5% each). The creators should have AT LEAST 70% of the Income.
2. The way a mod creator could use others work to earn money, without permission, and without sharing the profit.
Beyond that, I thinks paying for good mods is fair, at least if the price is right.
I think this will be much less an issue if they release the paid modding together with some new game, where modders will know of the rules and possible issues even before they start work on the mod.
There will probably still be problems and some abuse, but if modders know what they're getting into before starting to mod they're much more likely to accept the problems that come with the system.
"the more i see, the more i dont want to see"
this was a pretty low move from bethesda/steam.
They did a good thing, but in a shallow, half-arsed way. So it completely backfired.
Had they invested the proper time and planning in this, they would have changed the industry.
from shadofx on reddit, this guy nailed imo
"Well mods like SkyUI cost a dollar and the majority of that should go to the modder.
It makes no sense to reward Bethesda for designing a horrible UI.
What's stopping them from releasing a new game with numerous bugs and little content and just wait for the modders to fix things? Make bank twice for less effort?
EDIT: Exaggerating of course. The point is now Bethesda doesn't need to fix their bugs, their fans will do it for them and they'll get paid more than before. Hell, Bethesda should be paying the modders, not the other way around."
Wait, what? I understand Valve taking a chunk to cover costs such as bandwidth and transaction processing, but why the hell should Bethesda get a cut? Their costs were covered by the initial purchase of the game. They made their money at time of sale, and just the thought that they should get anything else is idiotic.
It's like giving Chevrolet a third of the profits from the sale of a used vehicle. Utter nonsense.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
As far as your first point "no they shouldn't". 70%? Rarely do you get that in any creative field. They didn't create the game and they didn't create the "store".
The highest I would say is just split the "pot" in thirds.
As far as your second point, this was changed after the first discovery that it was an issue.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Buyer of the mod would always have the option to not update to newer version of the game.
Or purchase DLC.
Like anything in the world, it's all in how you handle it.
If Bethesda wants modders to get recognition and $ for their mods, they should purchase them from the modder themselves for whatever price they agree to and then sell "Official Bethesda-vetted" mods or mod packs under their own name. Then we just have Valve and Bethesda to deal with if any problems arise.
They can happily co-exist with free mods from people who may not want to sell theirs and you use those knowing there may be bugs and issues down the road.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
It won't work.
Aside from all the arguments about whether or not modders deserve the money or not, doing stuff like this will simply lead to a community abandoning mods.
Not every game gets modded extensively, even if those games make it easy to do so it doesn't mean that a community will spring up around it to get the modding going.
Paid mods are not a community-driven addition, they are a "top to bottom" affair instead. It's Valve and Bethesda pushing this.
The barriers it creates between the community are already visible in just a few mere days of having this pushed into Skyrim. I don't blame modders who got 100K+ downloads on their mods thinking they could make cash for their hard work. Ultimately it wouldn't happen anyway, because there would be no more community to support it; or it would move elsewere.
Just think about it: you can have 255 mods installed in Skyrim, and many more with merges. Even if only 1/3rd of the mods became paid on a 300 mod game, for an average of $1/mod, that would still be 100 dollars worth of entry money to get a heavily modified game. That's like 4 times as much what the game itself is going for nowadays.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
The only good thing that I've learn from the internet is that you must take everything that is said or done with a grain of salt, doesn't matter if it's media's coverage-info or whether is a company's move-work
If you are willing to spend some time listening to a great "video-podcast" in which to many truths are said, check it out.
https://youtu.be/5aavBAplp5A
I really recommend listening the whole podcast, it's very informative.
The podcast is from TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit.
PD: The podcast it's a bit lengthy 1:51:38 but it's completely worth listening.
Moral of the story?
Just like game releases of late,when there is money to be made,everything is rushed.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Games are going free to play and you need to buy mods. It really is bizarro world.
How on earth are people going to distinguish between actual modders and scammers wanting to make a quick buck? It would be impossible for Steam to police this if it was large scale. Will Steam refund money from scams? Will popular modders have the resources to protect themselves from scammers going after their identities?
How about a modder releasing a really popular mod cheap (say $1) and then after a few updates when most of a community is using it he releases an updated version that now costs $10 or even $50.
Am I the only one who took this to mean paid moderators for the site?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
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Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
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I think it's a good idea, if they work it out fairly for all involved.
Why shouldn't someone be paid for their hard work and maybe it'll inspire a better standard of mod.
Unfortunately, the internet generation tend to be rather thievish. They waffle on about "modern business models"... But what they mean is, they don't want to pay for things. They want to download their movies and games and books and everything else for free and they also expect a high-standard too. They want people to work hard, creating high quality content for them and give it away for free - and they don't want commercials either. They want their thieving to go uninterrupted.
"It's like a finger pointing away to the moon... Don't concentrate on the finger or you'll miss all the heavenly glory" (Bruce Lee)
(Insert your favourite mmo here): ......And behold, a pale horse.... And a million hellishly bad mmos followed with it.
Here is a question that I have.
What about mods that fix issues with playability with games that have bugs and the devs have not fixed? I buy a game then have to go spend more money to make the game work right does not seem like something I want to do.
I all honesty the main mods (both (Oblivion and Skyrim) were to fix the bad things wrong with the game at release. There are horrible bugs that are actually show stoppers or incomplete designs that needed attention to make the game enjoyable beyond the first run through. Many of the side quests would bug out and are not complete.
Infinite loading screens and CDTs due to bad data make it fun NOT.
Now they can release broken stuff knowing the community will fix it for them?
I'll pass on it in the future if they go this route.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
I don't doubt mods will become paid but everything that they did was wrong here.
The 75% profit margin for one. That's robbery. A developer should be paid for their work sure, but 75% is robbing the mod creators of their money. If they are going to do that, I guarantee that moderators will just create their own paid sites.
The second thing is that mods for The Sims have been around since the very first iteration of the game over ten years ago. Some sites do have a "pay" or "subscription" option. Over the years, the creators have learned that it doesn't work the way they want it to. EA themselves used this method with the Sims 3, and though the players bought the items, they were livid at the sheer cost of each item and felt it was wrong. EA decided to do away with this with Sims 4 (probably the only bright thing they have done) as it just required far too much work to make sure that all the mods weren't filled with viruses, and were PG in nature, plus the cost associated with having to develop new items was monumental.
Also this "if a mod belongs to someone else and they don't agree with paid mods, you can still use it in your mod" is wrong in so many ways, there aren't even words. It's stealing someone elses work to make a profit on it. Free or not, that doesn't work. They need to establish rules that understand that the originator of the mod, paid or not, has the rights to the mod and how it is used.
They really screwed this up, and they screwed it up very bad. Mods are a labor of love, and the game companies do not have the right to make a profit from them. They already made a profit. They are using this as a way to make sure they don't have to pay someone to make things they should be making. It's not right.
I love how everyone is ignoring the even more important issues of payouts. So the developer of the mod's gets 25% according to the old deal. They THEN had to sell enough to make $100 or they wouldn't get a payout.
i.e. If they listed their mod for a buck. They'd have to sell 400 mods to get $100.
Further... if they sold 399 mods....
They wouldn't get their money and Valve would keep not only the first 300 bucks but the other 99 because they didn't reach the threshold for payment.
I didn't delve further to determine if this is EVERY single time... or only after the first... still a crummy deal.
Oh holy crap, I didn't realize that part. So its even worse than I thought.